Aug 12
18
Smite the Shepherd
“And one shall say unto him, what are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones” (Zech. 13:6, 7.)
I could hardly read these words from the pulpit the other day; I was so ashamed of my sin and the heavy burden of MY iniquities as they laid hard upon my Savior! I know first hand the hollow feelings and utter heart brokenness of being double crossed and stabbed in the back by a close ‘friend’. But this is exactly what I did to my Redeemer.
I was taught from a early religious age that ‘I was Jesus’ friend’, ‘He was my friend’, we were buddies from the time I was born, on and on went the lies, so much so that as a young adult I was totally convinced that I was His true friend. Then in mercy and grace I saw that I actually killed Him, it was my sins that nailed Him to the cross and indeed He was wounded by the friends of His own house-hold. I know that this does have reference to the Jewish nation, but my heart knows more of the plain truth than my head in this instance! Now, coupled with the utter shame and physical disgust that was His because of me and my rebellion, take the 7th verse and apply all the soul anguish charged to the Son of God on my behalf and I suppose you may have the two consecutive most horrific verses in all the scriptures.
The absolute filth that makes up me and the absolute sufferings applied and digested by the pure, sinless and majestic Lord of Glory! This is almost too much for me to stand up and proclaim to a people who need to hear this just like I have been told the night before by the spirit of grace and supplication. Oh help me Lord, my betrayal of you cuts deep into my heart, I look to you and amazingly you will not hold such depravity against me because I have gained more in Christ than I lost in Adam or committed on my own accord. Thank you, thank you, I am your servant, do with me as you will. Drew Dietz
The last dreg of wrath!
(Henry Law, “Christ is All” 1854)
Jesus crowns Himself with thorns, that He may crown His people with glory! He is made a curse for us! The sword of vengeance to the very hilt is sheathed in His breast! The last dreg of wrath is drained by Him! Not one drop remains for His people!
God’s promises!
from Spurgeon’s sermon, “Three Precious Things” #931
“…He has given us His very great and precious promises…” 2 Peter 1:4
God’s promises are precious because they tell of exceeding great and precious things. We have promises in the Bible which time would fail us to repeat, which for breadth and length are immeasurable.
They deal with every great thing which the soul can need:
promises of pardoned sin, promises of sanctification, promises of teaching,
promises of guidance, promises of upholding, promises of ennobling, promises of progress,
promises of consolation, and promises of perfection.
In this blessed book you have…. promises of the daily bread of earth;
promises of the bread of life from heaven; promises for time; promises for eternity.
You have so many promises, that all the conditions and positions of the believer are
met. I sometimes liken the promises to the locksmith’s great bunch of keys, which he brings
when you have lost the key of your treasure chest, and cannot unlock it. He feels pretty sure that out of all the keys upon the ring some one or other will fit, and he tries them with patient industry. At last! yes! that is it, he has moved the bolt, and you can get at your treasures!
There is always a promise in the volume of inspiration suitable to your present case.
Make the Lord’s promises your delight and your counselors, and they will befriend you at every turn. Search the Scriptures, and you shall meet with a promise which will be so applicable to you as to appear to have been written after your trouble had occurred! So exactly will it apply, that you will be compelled to marvel at the wonderful tenderness and suitableness of it.
As if the tailor had measured you from head to foot, so exactly shall the garment of the promise befit you. The promises are precious in themselves…. from their suitability to us,
from their coming from God, from their being immutable, from their being sure of performance, and from their containing wrapped up within themselves all that the children of God can ever need.
“…He has given us His very great and precious promises…” 2 Peter 1:4
“The Master has come, and is calling for you.” (John 11:28).
These familiar and memorable words were spoken at Bethany on a very different occasion from that of a Communion Season. But they may be warrantably and appropriately adapted as a summons and invitation to the Great Feast of love.
Jesus at all times is invisibly near to His own people. As doubtless, though unseen, He marked every tear of sorrow in that Bethany home during the mysterious “tarrying days” beyond Jordan—so on His throne in Heaven is He still ever imparting and manifesting, by His grace and Spirit, the comforting sense of His presence. But there are times and seasons when He draws especially near; and at no time nearer, or more graciously, than at this His own blessed Sacrament of Communion. In these memorials of His bleeding love, He is evidently and impressively “set forth crucified and slain.” In the preaching of this blessed Gospel I hear of Him. In the Holy Ordinance of the Supper I am privileged emblematically to behold Him. There, as in the case of Mary and Martha, He summons me to His feet, to listen, on that hallowed ground, to utterances of love and promises of glory. He takes me, as He did them, to a Grave—but it is that of no human friend. It is the Sepulcher into which He Himself entered as my Surety and Substitute. It is to see the Grave-stone rolled away forever; and over these symbols of suffering to hear Him proclaiming, as He did to the Bethany sisters, that He is Himself the Resurrection and the Life, and that because He lives, His people shall live also.
How does the summons sound in my ears? “The Master has come.” Do I—can I—respond to the Name? Am I able, experimentally, to rejoice in Him as ‘Rabboni, my Master,’—an all-sufficient Savior—whose blood has purchased a full, free, everlasting remission of my sins; and whose intercession is so prevalent at the right hand of God, that I am warranted, as I meet Him at this Bethany-gate of love, to say in the words of Martha’s first utterance—”I know that even now whatever You will ask of God, God will give it to You”? Yes! that mourner of Bethany presents me with a divine watchword, a golden key for the Table of Communion. The riches and promises of grace are to be there, in visible emblem, spread out before me—the garnered blessings of Salvation “hidden in Christ,” and whatever be my trial, or weakness, or infirmity, I am encouraged to behold the Scepter of the Heavenly King stretched forth, with the challenge and invitation—”What is your petition, and what is your request?”
“I will hear what God the Lord will speak—He will speak peace unto His people.” I will go to His appointed Ordinance, and there unburden and unbosom to Him all my needs and necessities. He will not send me empty away. “Jesus wept.”—He wept tears of sorrow as He stood before Martha and Mary in the Bethany graveyard; but this day He is to manifest Himself, in significant symbol, as shedding, not His tears, but His blood. He gives me the blessed pledge and assurance that He will, after the greatest of all boons and blessings—the gift of Himself, freely dower me with every lesser mercy. The Table is about to be spread; the Feast is prepared; the oxen and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. As, in the name of the rich Provider, I listen in thought to the summons, as if from some herald-angel—”The Master has come, and calls for you,” be it mine to respond—”I will go into Your House with burnt offerings, I will pay You my vows.” Lord, to whom can I go but unto You, You have the words of eternal life! Bring me to Your Banqueting-house, and let Your banner over me be love! Hide me in this Cleft of the Rock, and let all Your glory pass before me!-John MacDuff.
That this blessed scripture points to Christ, and to him only, the Lord Jesus himself fully confirmed in his discourse with his disciples at the Mount of Olives, Matt. xxvi. 31. And indeed of whom could Jehovah thus speak, as “fellow to the Lord of Hosts,” but to Him, who, “though in the form of God, and with whom it was no robbery to be equal with God, yet took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men?” But what call is this to the sword? Was it the flaming sword at the gate of Paradise, which was placed there to guard the way to the tree of life? And had the sword been for so many ages sleeping? Could none presume to enter but Jesus? And if he enters, the sword of God’s justice must first awake, and be sheathed in his heart? And is it God the Father himself that thus commands the sword to awake, and smite his only begotten Son? Did God indeed so love the world, that he thus gave his only begotten Son, “to the end that all who believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life?” Pause, my soul, over these solemn, but blessed thoughts. And is he God, on whom these things are to be transacted? Yes; for he is “fellow to the Lord of Hosts.” And is he man also? Yes; for “the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us!” Such is the mystery of godliness; “God manifest in the flesh!” And, what! is he both God and man in one person? Yes; for so only could he be Christ. Well might the prophet exclaim, “Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth!”—My soul! take thy stand, this evening, at the foot of the cross, and contemplate, among the prodigies of that memorable day, that great wonder concerning Him crucified, who was fellow to the Lord of Hosts. View both his natures: He was truly and properly man; for it was one express article in the covenant of redemption, that “as by man came death, by man should come also the resurrection of the dead. And as by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one should many be made righteous.” Moreover, the first promise of the bible, which came in with the fall, was express to this purpose: “The seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.” The devil had triumphed over the nature of man in the fall; and the same nature of man was promised to conquer death, hell, and the grave: and as both the law and the justice of God were solemnly concerned that the same nature which had rebelled should obey, and the same nature which had sinned should atone; and all the divine perfections were concerned, that he who undertook the purposes of redemption, should be the man that was fellow to the Lord of Hosts, even Christ Jesus. Secondly, as none but man could be suited for a Redeemer, so none but God could be competent to accomplish redemption. Hence he must be fellow to the Lord of Hosts. In point of dignity, in point of merit, the glory due to a Redeemer when redemption should be accomplished, and the adoration, love, and praise to be ascribed to him, could never be suitable to any less than God. Hence by the union of both natures, Jesus, and Jesus only, who thus formed one Christ, became the very person here described, and was, and is, and ever must be, “the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts.” Now, my soul, whenever thou lookest up to the cross, (let it be daily, hourly, continually, yea, unceasingly) never lose sight of this glorious union of God and man in thy Jesus. Fix thine eyes, thine heart, thy whole affection upon him; and while thou art resting all thine assurance of pardon, mercy, and peace, the joy of this life, and the glory of that which is to come, wholly upon thy Jesus; Oh! let thine ear of faith receive in transports of delight, the
proclamation of God thy Father concerning Him, “the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts.”